Federal prosecutors drop case against Barry Bonds

In a court filing on Tuesday, prosecutors said they would not try to litigate the case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Department of Justice formally abandoned its pursuit of criminal prosecution against former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds on Tuesday.

Bonds was acquitted on all perjury charges at his original trial, and in April the US Court of Appeals overturned his conviction on the obstruction charge.

The Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals threw out that conviction in April. As I have said before, this outcome is something I have long wished for.

“The finality of today’s decision gives me great peace”, Bonds wrote in a blog post. “In my opinion they should have never brought charges against Barry Bonds and wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars….”

He was eventually convicted of a single count of obstruction in 2011 for a rambling answer to a federal grand jury as to whether he received injections of steroids from personal trainer Greg Anderson while he played for the Giants. A player must garner at least 75 percent of the vote to be elected.

The Department of Justice ended their decade-long investigation of Bonds for obstruction of justice. Instead, the DOJ said the reversal of Bonds’ conviction would stand. Bonds attorney Dennis Riordan decline comment early Tuesday, saying he needed to speak with his client before discussing the case publicly.

“That’s what keeps our friendship”, Bonds replied.

The answer included musings about being “a celebrity child with a famous father” and other remarks jurors later said were meant to evade questions about his steroid use.

The appeals court 10-1 ruling erased what was left of the Bonds prosecution, which began in 2003 when his name surfaced in records linked to a then-obscure Peninsula laboratory known as BALCO that became the epicenter of doping in sports, according to Mercury News.

As a result of the conviction, the Major League Baseball all-time home run leader served 30 days home confinement and paid a $4,000 fine. Thank you to all of you who have expressed your heartfelt wishes to me; for that, I am grateful.